How to Create a Facebook Back Up

Creating a backup of your hard drive and all your data on a regular basis is important -- but have you thought about backing up your Facebook data?

Creating a backup of your hard drive and all your data on a regular basis is important, but have you thought about backing up your Facebook data? This is extremely important for business owners who need to keep up-to-date records of all online communications for legal reasons.

Something that is important to remember about social networking profiles, like your Facebook page, is that you don't "own" the account and the data associate with it. Any account you create online (e.g. Twitter, Facebook or Gmail) can be suspended or terminated by the service: you can lose your account without warning if you are suspected of violating the site's terms of service.

Creating a Facebook Backup from Your Facebook Profile

Facebook allows you to create an archive of your profile at any time, from within the social networking site. In this way you create the archive of your profile and download it to your own computer to maintain and include as part of your regular back up process. Facebook's backup file includes an HTML page so you can preview all the content in your profile.

Here are the steps to backup your Facebook data:

Step 1: Log in to your Facebook account

Step 2: Go to the drop down arrow located in the top right-hand corner of your profile page and choose Account Settings.* Quick Link:Account Settings Page (You must be logged in).

Step 3: Below the settings list (very bottom of tab) you will see a hyperlink to Download a copy of your Facebook data.

Step 4: From the Download page you will see a green button ("Start My Archive") that will initiate the download process. Facebook will generate the download and email you when it is ready.

Create a Social Account Backup With Backupify

You can also create a backup of your Facebook profile and accounts on other social sites using third-party backup service. A service will automate the backup process and archive all data associated with your online account.

Backupify is an online service that builds a single, searchable archive of all your online data. The service will backs up your authenticated services either weekly or daily, based on your subscription. Supported accounts include Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Calendar, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Blogger, Google Contacts, Picasa, Zoho and LinkedIn.

Based in Nova Scotia, Canada, Vangie Beal has been covering small business, electronic commerce and Internet technology for more than a decade. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.